The Convair P6Y was an unbuilt

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

Convair Convair, previously Consolidated Vultee, was an American aircraft manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft. In 1953, i ...

in the 1950s. The design was initiated to meet a requirement of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

(USN) for an

anti-submarine warfare Anti-submarine warfare (ASW, or in older form A/S) is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, submarines, or other platforms, to find, track, and deter, damage, or destroy enemy submarines. Such operations are t ...

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

History

The design was for a flying boat that would make use of

boundary layer control Boundary layer control refers to methods of controlling the behaviour of fluid flow boundary layers. It may be desirable to reduce flow separation on fast vehicles to reduce the size of the wake (streamlining), which may reduce drag. Boundary l ...

to achieve slow speed flight. It was intended that this would enable the aircraft to land on the open ocean in rough seas and deploy a

dipping sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or ...

.P6Y web page at globalsecurity.org
retrieved 2007-11-15. Other visual features of the design were an extremely large swept vertical fin that, combined with the dorsal fin and rudder, would have been about half the total length of the aircraft, and a thimble nose

radome A radome (a portmanteau of radar and dome) is a structural, weatherproof enclosure that protects a radar antenna. The radome is constructed of material transparent to radio waves. Radomes protect the antenna from weather and conceal antenna e ...

.Convair P6Y design drawing
retrieved 2007-11-15. Two prototypes were ordered under the USN designation XP6Y-1 with the BuNos. (Navy serial numbers) 147206 and 147207. The design had competition from the Martin P7M SubMaster, but the USN's preference was for the P6Y. Both types suffered from budget constraints and neither was built (although a mock-up of the P7M was constructed); the USN cancelled the contract for the two prototype XP6Y-1sUS Navy aircraft Bureau Number list, third series
retrieved 2007-11-15. and later opted for the land-based P-3 Orion instead.

Specifications (projected)

References

{{USN patrol aircraft P6Y Trimotors Aircraft with auxiliary jet engines Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United States Flying boats Parasol-wing aircraft

History

Specifications (projected)

See also

References